Jewish Teen Boater Still Missing Off Florida Coast
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The search for two missing 14-year-old boys from South Florida whose empty boat was found adrift in the Atlantic Ocean has been extended north beyond Jacksonville to encompass an area the size of Maine, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday.
The boys, Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen, were last seen on Friday afternoon buying fuel in Jupiter, Florida. Their 19-foot, single-engine boat was found on Sunday overturned and empty east of Ponce Inlet, 180 miles north of Jupiter. One life vest was found near the boat.
The Coast Guard cutter Paul Clark and a C-130 airplane will continue the search for the boys between Daytona Beach and Fernandina Beach, about 305 miles north of their last sighting, Coast Guard Petty Officer Anthony Soto said.
The extension of the search area is based on currents and drift models, Petty Officer Steve Lehmann said.
Joe Namath, the Hall of Fame former New York Jets quarterback who is a neighbor of the boys, offered a $100,000 reward to qualified searchers for their safe return.
Initial reports to the Coast Guard on Friday indicated the boys might have been heading toward the Bahamas on a fishing trip. Family members described the boys as experienced boaters.
Perry’s mother, Pamela Cohen, said on Monday the families still had faith the boys would be found and urged the public to help search for any signs of them. She asked people to walk the beaches looking for any possible debris along the Florida coastline and for boaters to look for any other signs.
Authorities and the family are also looking for a Yamaha brand engine cover and a white cooler from the boat that have not yet been recovered.
“Hopefully these boys have them and are using them as flotation devices,” she said in a telephone interview on MSNBC. “Those are salty dog kids,” Nick Korniloff, Cohen’s stepfather, told reporters in video posted on CFL 1, an Orlando news channel.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
